Formula Indie Sessions : Interview with Lauri Järvilehto

What is your earliest memory connected to music?

When I was maybe five or six years old, my dad would take me on his lap and play the piano so I’d place my hands on top of his. This way I could imagine I was playing too. Another big thing was my parents’ vinyl collection; I started listening to them at some point, and I remember in particular a Dutch band Ekseption playing jazz covers of classical pieces like Albignoni’s Adagio and Bach’s Prelude & Fugue in a minor.

How did your passion for creating music begin?

Ever since I could reach the keys of our piano, I would try to find tunes there. I started taking classical piano lessons at five, but never really grew the tenacity to actually develop as a classical player. I even switched to accordion when twelve as main instrument, but rediscovered piano at around thirteen or fourteen when I fould first blues and then jazz. Also, at around twelve I had started to write my own synth-driven music, and it turned out developing a better technique also helped with writing new songs.

What’s the story behind your current music project?

My first solo album, Twilight Cinema, came out in 1999. After that I got pulled into music producing and mostly worked with other bands and artists. I did have a kind of a “solo” project around 2005 called Lau, which involved about 15–20 other musicians. I moved away from music around that time too, having started to study philosophy. Around 2018 I rediscovered the same passion and love I’d had for music making the last time around the time I was in high school, and that led me back to realizing I really did want to release music under my own name. This has now led to two albums, North Star Revisited and Songs About Sadness, and the next one is already well underway and should be released some time next year.

How would you describe your sound to someone who has never heard your music before?

David Bowie x New Wave x St. Vincent. Bowie has been the number one for me for years, and recently I’ve really started to gravitate to a kind of an updated 1980s new wave vibe in my music. I think St. Vincent is kind of the present day Bowie, and her music has also had a huge influence on me. 

What is one thing you’ve learned that completely changed the way you make music?

That if you can make a sound with a thing – instrument or otherwise – you can make music with it. As I mentioned, I had a very classical education in piano and later grew up with very talented jazz musicians, both worlds being very focused on technical brilliance. When I really started to figure out the guitar about seven years ago, it wasn’t that I would have figured out how to play very technical things – but by learning to play power chords. In my new songs, I play more than a dozen different instruments, and while piano is still the only instrument I have a professional capacity with, I’ve come to realize that there are so many great things you can make musically with drums, guitar, percussion – or even a sax or a clarinet, once you get the basic gist of it.

What tools, instruments, or software are essential in your creative process?

I would say my studio as a whole. I have nice collection of vintage synths and drum machines, and have set up hardwired mics for vocals, guitars, woodwinds and brass, drums, congas, bongos, timbales and grand piano so if inspiration strikes I can just punch in record and take it from there. I mostly work with Logic, although when traveling I work on song drafts also using a Roland SP404mk2 and an OP-1. But the most essential thing is, music is for me very embodied and situated and I’ve found it so much more rewarding to express myself using a variety of physical instruments rather than virtual plugins to the extent that I rarely use plugin instruments anymore.

Which indie artist or song are you loving right now?

There are a couple of Finnish artists that have really struck a chord with me lately. Tinyhawk & Bizzarro is an instrumental guitar-lead driven band that is simply awesome, and Juppe is a kind of a modern day Prince, who if I understood correctly, also does all of his production and engineering. And one of the best indie vinyls I have is also Finnish, an electronic instrumental work by Kaukolampi, called Inside the Sphere. It’s quite mind-blowing what this guy can do with electronic instruments.

How have your personal experiences influenced your music and artistic vision?

I remember when I was starting my professional musical career someone said that you can’t just live in the studio all the time, you also need to have a life to be able to find the stories you tell in your music. A lot of my personal experiences are carried either directly or indirectly in my songs, lately for example just wondering about the world or discussing the ups and downs of family life. On the new album, I’ve also written some songs about my youth when I used to do a lot of backpacking and hitchhiking and had a pretty fast paced lifestyle. 

What emotions or messages do you hope listeners take from your work?

Whatever they connect with. I don’t think it’s my job to decide what the listener will feel – but I think it’s my responsibility to do everything I can so that the listener will connect with the music. I think it was Ursula K. Le Guin who said that once a book is finished, it’s no longer the writer’s property, but the reader’s. I believe same applies to music too.

What’s the most important lesson music has taught you so far?

That there is a never ending wonderland of expression and connection hidden behind anything that can make a sound.

What is a dream venue or festival you would love to perform at?

Wembley Stadium.

If you could collaborate with any artist, past or present, who would it be and why?

David Bowie. His music has been so significant and transformative to me that just getting to spend a moment reflecting on music with him would have been wonderful. I’ve listened through his entire discography and have many of his albums on vinyl. Lately I’ve been listening in particular a lot to the Berlin Trilogy. But yeah, if I could’ve had the chance to do anything with Bowie, that would have been incredible.

Where can our listeners follow and support your music?(Website,Spotify, IG, links)

Website: www.laurijarvilehto.com, Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/1rUBRpiFLDEdYV4aHhKfzt

IG: https://www.instagram.com/lauri.jarvilehto/ Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@lauri-jarvilehto

Looking toward the future, what’s your dream for the next chapter of your musical journey?

I hope I can get the new music out as soon as I have it shaped up the way it should be, and I hope to reach new listeners with it. I’m also hopeful that I would be able to start doing some live performances  next year.

What do you hope listeners will discover about you along the way?

I hope they will discover what will move or touch them in the best possible way.

If you want here you can add a representative Youtube video to insert below the interview 🙂

Here’s the music video of the song Typhoon from my previous album: